As some of you know I’m involved with the Mount Burnett Observatory, a community run astronomical observatory in the Dandenong Ranges of Victoria near Emerald to the south-east of Melbourne. Originally built by Monash University in the early 1970’s it’s 3 years since a small group of people formed a community association, took over the site and starting resurrecting it as an observatory by and for the people. It’s now three years on and by the end of last year we were the second largest astronomical association in Victoria!

At 6pm we have a barbecue and then at 7pm there will be a talk by Perry Vlahos on what there will be to see in the sky over the coming month. After that we’ll be socialising and, if the weather behaves itself, viewing the stars through the many observatory telescopes.

Looks like things are moving along in the world of 64-bit ARM, systems aimed at early adopting developers are now around. For instance APM have their X-C1 Development Kit Plus which has 8 x 2.4GHz ARMv8 cores, 16GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 1x10gigE, 3x1gigE for ~US$2,500 (or a steep discount if you qualify as a developer). Oh, and it ships with Linux by default of course.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that they have signed a Definitive Agreement under which GLOBALFOUNDRIES plans to acquire IBM’s global commercial semiconductor technology business, including intellectual property, world-class technologists and technologies related to IBM Microelectronics, subject to completion of applicable regulatory reviews. GLOBALFOUNDRIES will also become IBM’s exclusive server processor semiconductor technology provider for 22 nanometer (nm), 14nm and 10nm semiconductors for the next 10 years.

It includes IBM’s IP and patents, though IBM will continue to do research for 5 years and GlobalFoundries will get access to that. Now what happens to those researchers (one of whom happens to be a friend of mine) after that isn’t clear.

What this all means for their Power CPU is uncertain, and if I was nVidia and Mellanox in the OpenPOWER alliance I would be hoping I’d know about this before joining up!

Update: I’ve spoken to some IBM’ers about this and they assert they’re not leaving the chip business, they are offloading off the fabs and the manufacturing IP to GlobalFoundries but not the chip design side of things. In my opinion, though, it does mean that should they decide to exit the chip business at some point it’ll be easier for them to do so.

I’ve not been blogging recently, though I’ve been tweeting a fair bit, and I’ve been getting more and more disconcerted by what the Australian government has been up to, especially with respect to refugees. We are seeing the emergence of a militaristic approach where the facts about rights to seek asylum are conveniently ignored and refugees are labelled as “illegal” (they’re not) and a threat to our borders (they’re not). Questions are met with silence (unless they happen to coincide with their agenda) to frankly absurd levels.

"Seeking asylum is not illegal under international law and people have a right to be treated humanely and with dignity." – UNHCR #auspol

We keep them in concentration camps on foreign soil and deprive them of necessities even though they’ve committed no crime and we leave them to go mad from boredom, fear and neglect. We’ve had one person murdered in our care with the prime suspect being a Salvation Army worker, but somehow after 6 months nobody has been charged. Others were seriously injured, but their assailants haven’t been charged either.

Now we have the situation of refugees from Sri Lanka who have boarded boats in India being intercepted at sea and returned, not to Indias care, but to the Sri Lankan navy where on their return to Sri Lanka they are then handed over to the police for prosection (as it’s apparently illegal to leave Sri Lanka without permission, the sentence is “two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine”).

Eric Abetz says Australia doesn't disappear people. Instead it seems it outsources it to a country that disappears people. Aus called on SL to end "all cases of abductions and disappearances … abuse, torture or mistreatment by police and security forces" 2012

Such summary procedures do not comply with minimum standards on refugee status determination under international law. Holding asylum seekers on boats in this manner also amounts to incommunicado detention without judicial scrutiny.

I cannot stand by and be seen to acquiesce in this abuse of fundamental human rights and so I’ve decided that I must join The Greens as none of the major parties appear to understand international law and obligations.

This is not an easy decision for me, I spent 7 years working in the UK Civil Service and so that ethos of being independent of a political party is deeply ingrained, but the revulsion I have for the policies of this government and my fear of the dark places it is leading us has finally overcome it.

Tonight Melbourne got to experience the tail end of a lunar eclipse as the moon rose in eclipse at 17:48. We took a friend on a trip up to the (apparently now closed) Olinda Golf Course to view the moon rise. It was nice and clear and after roaming around a bit to find a place where we should have been able to see the eclipsed moon we found a suitable spot but couldn’t see the moon itself. Mars was visible in the right area but of course the salient point of a lunar eclipse is that the moon is in the earths shadow and so wasn’t findable until it started to exit at third contact. Got a few photos, of which this was the best.

We had to head back down the hill as Donna had an appointment at 7pm but later on our friend called up and said excitedly “Have you seen the moon? Go and look!”. I went out to see but the hills were still in the way then, so later on I headed out with the camera once the moon was visible and got some more photos as the moon headed towards fourth contact (when it exits the shadow of the Earth).

This could get interesting, the National Court of PNG has invoked a section of the PNG Constitution that permits it to investigate possible breaches of basic rights on its own initiative.

The National Court, having taken judicial notice of the alleged detention at the regional processing centre at Lombrum Naval Base, Manus Province, of a considerable number of persons seeking refugee status or asylum in Australia, who have been transferred to Manus pursuant to memoranda of agreement between the Governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia, known generally as “asylum seekers” or “transferees”, and reports of alleged human rights violations and complaints about the conditions of detention and disturbances resulting in injuries to such persons, decided on its own initiative to inquire into such matters by invoking Section 57(1) of the Constitution.

The third stage of the hearing I anticipate will be in Lorengau, in the week commencing Monday 10 March. Evidence will be received at this hearing. The Court will inspect the regional processing centre. Transferees will be invited to give evidence. It is anticipated that this process will take at least three days.

The questions that he has set are:

What human rights do the transferees have under the Constitution, if any?

Have those rights, if any, been or are they now being, administered to them?

If not, what orders and declarations should the Court make to protect and enforce those rights?

I, SCOTT MORRISON, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, acting under section 85 of the Migration Act 1958 (‘the Act’) DETERMINE that the maximum number of Protection (Class XA) visas that may be granted in the financial year 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014 is 2773.

Worse still it’s not the first time the Minister for Operation Sovereign Murders has tried this, on 4th December 2013 he set a limit of 1,650 visas, the number granted up to that date. That instrument was revoked on the 20th December after a legal challenge was mounted to it (see the RACS PDF for more information). So this seems to be another cynical attempt to prevent genuine refugees coming to Australia, by any means at all.

I can only imagine what will happen on Manus Island when the news gets out that nobody will have any chance at all of getting a visa until July at the very earliest.

Australia will take no more refugees this financial year. Morrison has capped all visa grants http://t.co/YTlC9V0i4W

In relation to question 2, no, the unaccompanied Sri Lankan minors were not advised of their rights to seek asylum. Australian law does not contain a right to seek asylum, and therefore, departmental practice does not involve advising unauthorised arrivals that they have such a right.

In other words, Australia’s own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, except this time in defiance of international agreements Australia itself helped forge.

Australia was a founding member of the UN and played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945. Australia was also one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration.

This was largely due to the influential leadership of Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, the head of Australia’s delegation to the UN. In 1948, Dr HV Evatt became President of the UN General Assembly. That same year he oversaw the adoption of the Universal Declaration.

Of course that declaration was not legally binding but Australia was involved in drafting, and we are signatories to, the 1951 Refugee Convention, which in the preamble says it:

recommends Governments to take the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family especially with a view to:
(1) Ensuring that the unity of the refugee’s family is maintained particularly in cases where the head of the family has fulfilled the necessary conditions for admission to a particular country,
(2) The protection of refugees who are minors, in particular unaccompanied children and girls, with special reference to guardianship and adoption.

owing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

The Migration Act incorporates art 1A(2) into Australian domestic law, and gives effect to Australia’s obligation of non-refoulement—not to return a person in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where the person’s life or freedom would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Section 36(2) provides for the grant of a protection visa to a ‘non-citizen in Australia to whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention as amended by the Refugees Protocol’.

Now the Migration Act itself doesn’t include a right to ask for “asylum”, but it does include the right to ask for a “protection visa” on grounds of being a refugee. To me that’s exactly what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means when it talks about asylum, not to mention the fact that the Refugee Convention talks about asylum all the time. For instance when talking about not penalising refugees for their method of arrival it says:

The Convention further stipulates that, subject to specific exceptions, refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry or stay. This recognizes that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules.

To me this seems to show that the Australian Government itself is either ignorant of its own legislation or just being deliberately misleading. Or both. None of which would surprise me at the moment.